The Café Adler was an oasis of bourgeois tranquility. Golden afternoon sunlight, thick with dancing dust motes, streamed through the tall, immaculately clean windows, illuminating a scene of peaceful, civilized order. Well-dressed patrons in high collars and elegant hats sipped coffee from delicate porcelain cups, the gentle clink of silverware a quiet percussion beneath the rustle of newspapers. The air was a comforting blend of roasted coffee beans, warm pastry, and expensive perfume. It was a world utterly detached from the brutal realities of empires and revolutions.
Koba's team moved within this serene ecosystem like ghosts from another reality, a pack of wolves that had somehow wandered into a sheep's meadow.
Ivan was the anchor, parked a block away in a stolen green delivery truck, the kind used for hauling produce. The engine was idling, a low, impatient rumble that was lost in the general hum of the Charlottenburg district. Murat, looking almost natural in a student's threadbare jacket, sat at a corner table, a newspaper held up in front of his face. His eyes, however, were not on the print; they darted nervously over the top of the paper, scanning the room, his leg jiggling with a frantic, suppressed energy.
Near the door, Pavel sat alone at a small table, a single untouched cup of coffee before him. He looked profoundly and miserably out of place. He was squeezed into a borrowed suit that was too tight across his massive shoulders, the fabric straining at the seams. He looked less like a patron and more like a barely contained explosion, a boulder teetering on the edge of a cliff. His discomfort was a palpable force, a quiet promise of violence in the peaceful room.
Koba was the calm center of their storm. He stood at the polished wooden counter, calmly ordering a coffee from the smiling barista, his German accent flawless, his mannerisms relaxed. But his senses were stretched to their absolute limit. He was not just seeing the room; he was cataloging it. Nineteen patrons. Two staff. One main entrance, watched by Pavel. One back door, likely leading to a kitchen and then an alley. The marble tabletops were heavy, potential weapons. The large front window was a liability, an open line of sight to the street. His mind was a cold, high-speed calculator, processing angles, threats, and timing.
At two minutes to four, their first target arrived. Roman Malinovsky entered with the easy, confident stride of a man accustomed to being recognized and admired. He was a handsome man, his dark hair swept back, his suit well-made. He greeted the café owner by name, sharing a brief, warm laugh. He was the perfect image of the respectable politician, the beloved man of the people. Jake's mind felt a surge of nauseating dissonance; this charming man was a traitor, and they were about to shatter this peaceful scene, perhaps his life, forever. Koba's mind simply noted his position as he took a secluded table in the back of the cafe.
Three minutes later, the second target arrived. Viktor Artamonov was Malinovsky's polar opposite. He was a bland, forgettable man in a rumpled suit, with a weak chin and spectacles that seemed to slide down his nose. He looked like a mid-level clerk, a man who would fade into any background. He was the embodiment of the Okhrana's institutional grayness. He slid into the chair opposite Malinovsky without any fanfare, and the two men began to speak in low, conspiratorial tones. The final pieces were in place.
Koba took a slow sip of his coffee. The bitter taste grounded him. He glanced at the clock on the wall. 4:05 p.m. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod to Murat.
From a block away, the sound began. It started as shouting, indistinct but angry, then escalated into a percussive crash of breaking glass and a roar of masculine voices. The German-staged diversion. Every head in the Café Adler, patrons and staff alike, instinctively turned towards the sound, their faces a mixture of alarm and curiosity.
In that single, shared moment of distraction, Koba's plan detonated.
Murat shot to his feet, deliberately knocking his small table over. It crashed to the floor with a clatter of ceramic and steel that was louder than a gunshot in the suddenly quiet room. Every eye that had been looking out the window now whipped towards him.
It was all the misdirection Koba needed.
In the split second that Murat held the room's attention, the other two pieces moved. Pavel rose from his chair, no longer a man in a tight suit but a mountain of sheer physical menace. He didn't draw a weapon; he didn't need to. He simply planted himself in front of the main entrance, his arms crossed, his face a mask of cold fury that promised agony to anyone who tried to pass.
Koba flowed away from the counter. He did not run. He moved with a liquid, predatory grace that seemed to devour the distance to the back table. His mind had calculated that he had three seconds before the targets could react.
Malinovsky, the politician, was stunned, his mouth half-open, his mind struggling to process the sudden chaos. But Artamonov, the professional spy, reacted with the honed instincts of a trained field agent. His hand didn't go for a pistol—too loud, too slow. It darted inside his coat for a small, leather-wrapped cosh, a silent and brutal weapon. He was faster than Koba had anticipated. He brought the weapon up and over in a vicious arc, aiming for the side of Koba's head, a blow designed to incapacitate, not to kill.
Koba, moving with a speed that seemed to defy the normal laws of motion, met the attack. He threw his left forearm up, intercepting the blow. The sound was not a thud, but a sickening, wet crunch of bone meeting lead-weighted leather. A bolt of white-hot agony shot up Koba's arm, but he made no sound, his face betraying nothing. He had absorbed the blow, and in the same fluid motion, he drove the heel of his right hand into the soft hollow of Artamonov's throat.
The spy's attack was cut off with a choked, gurgling gasp. Before Artamonov could recover, Koba grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face down onto the marble tabletop with a final, brutal thud. Artamonov went limp. Koba whirled on the terrified, paralyzed Malinovsky, whose face was a mask of pure, uncomprehending terror. Koba pressed the muzzle of a compact German pistol deep into the man's fleshy ribs and whispered a single, cold command in Russian.
"Not one sound. Or this cafe becomes your grave."
The entire violent sequence, from Murat's table flip to Malinovsky's surrender, had taken less than ten seconds. It was a masterpiece of brutal, synchronized violence. Murat was already at Koba's side, helping him drag the semi-conscious Artamonov and the whimpering Malinovsky towards the kitchen door at the back.
The patrons were frozen in a state of shock, watching the scene unfold as if it were a strange and terrifying play. Pavel held their attention, a silent, human wall between them and the chaos.
Koba and Murat burst through the swinging kitchen doors, startling a young dishwasher who dropped a stack of plates with a crash. They ignored him, kicked open the back alley door, and flooded the narrow, garbage-strewn space with sunlight.
Ivan had the delivery truck perfectly positioned, its back doors wide open. They threw the two men into the dark, cavernous space like sacks of grain and slammed the heavy doors shut. Koba vaulted into the passenger seat, Murat climbing into the back with their prisoners.
"Go!" Koba barked, his left arm a throbbing universe of pain.
Ivan gunned the engine. The truck lurched forward, tires squealing on the cobblestones as it sped away down the alley, leaving behind a shattered oasis of tranquility and a café full of silent, stunned witnesses. The entire operation, from the first shout of the diversion to their escape, had taken less than three minutes.
Inside the dark, lurching back of the truck, the smell of old cabbage and fear was overwhelming. Pavel, having joined Murat, was efficiently tying up their prisoners with thick rope. Artamonov was groaning, slowly regaining consciousness. Malinovsky was simply whimpering, tears streaming down his face, his political bravado utterly shattered.
Pavel finished his work and looked at Koba, who had climbed into the back to assess the situation. Koba's face was pale, his jaw clenched against the agony in his arm, which was already swelling to twice its normal size. Pavel's own face was ashen, his hands shaking slightly, not from the adrenaline of the fight, but from a deep, moral horror. They had done it. They had committed an act of brazen, violent kidnapping in broad daylight. They were traitors, not just to the Tsar, but to their own Party.
"Koba… the mission is done," Pavel said, his voice a low, pleading rumble, desperate for some kind of reassurance, some sign that this was still part of a revolutionary plan. "We have them. Where are we taking them now? The rendezvous? Where is the safe house?"
Koba looked at the two hooded, pathetic figures tied up at his feet. He then looked at his loyal friend, the man who had followed him from the forests of Vologda to the heart of the German Empire. His eyes were devoid of any warmth, any comradeship. They were the eyes of a general who no longer saw soldiers, only assets.
"Not to a rendezvous," Koba said, his voice flat and cold, each word a hammer blow against Pavel's last hopes. "There is no safe house. We are taking them to their new masters."